Bloomberg's Global Product Certification Program online: An academic business librarian's experience

The Bloomberg Professional Service is well-known as a high-quality source of real-time and historical financial information. However, it is also a complex system, not easily or intuitively navigated. In 2001, Bloomberg introduced the Global Product Certification Program to assist users in becoming proficient on the system; initially classroom-based, this training became available online to Bloomberg Professional users everywhere in early 2005. The author discusses her experiences with and observations of the online certification program during the course of obtaining all three certificates. In June 2006, Bloomberg announced its intent to implement a new certification program in August 2006; that new program holds the potential to address some of the issues of the original program, as identified by the author.